(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a computer-readable recording medium containing an application management program, and a method and apparatus for application management, which enable managing the upgrade status of an application. More particularly, this invention relates to a computer-readable recording medium containing an application management program, and a method and apparatus for application management, which enable managing the upgrade status of a client application that communicates with a server application.
(2) Description of the Related Art
At present, client-server network applications have been widely used as a form of distributed processing that is performed by computers over networks. Especially, more forms are to distribute files via networks, which are required for execution of client applications. At first, a terminal device acquires a file that is required for execution of a client application from a previously designated computer. The terminal device then executes the client application based on the acquired file. The executed client application performs processing while communicating with a server application according to necessity. Such application forms have an advantage that a server is capable of collectively managing data. In addition, since a desired client application can be executed by using a terminal device, distributed processing using the functions and processing performance of the terminal device can be performed. For example, if the client application is executed by using a portable terminal device having a camera function, etc., processing involving these functions of the portable terminal device can be realized.
When a server application is upgraded to a new version, a client application should be upgraded to a new version accordingly. However, to upgrade the client application, a terminal device needs to actively acquire a file for the new version from a previously designated computer. This is because, in client-server applications, communication does not start unless the client application issues a communication request. Therefore, conventionally, an administrator notifies the user of the terminal device via another means such as e-mail that the file for the new version has become available. This method, however, has a drawback of a complicated process for managing the versions of the client application executed by terminal devices, which bears a large burden on the administrator.
There has been known a system for automatically managing versions of a client application (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-258967). In this system, a server computer holds information on the latest version of a client application and information of versions used by terminal devices. When a terminal device issues a version confirmation request to the server computer, the server computer determines based on locally stored information whether the version used by the requesting terminal device is the latest version. If the version is not the latest, the server computer automatically sends a file for the latest version to the terminal device. In addition, the server computer updates information of the version used by the terminal device, resulting in keeping the information stored on the server computer updated. Such a system significantly reduces a burden on an administrator who manages versions.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-258967, it is considered that upgrade of a client application is done in a terminal device when a file for the latest version is transmitted to the terminal device. Therefore, the version currently used by the terminal device cannot be managed.
That is, there are such cases that a user of the terminal device may not install a file obtained from the server computer in the terminal device or may remove the latest version file after installation. In these cases, the server computer cannot correctly track the version of the client application currently executed by the terminal device. As a result, communication from the client application to the server application of a different version is established and so a defect may occur while the server application is running.